Extraterrestrial
by RobinGabriella
Summary: Very loosely based on Avatar, a boy on Earth is visited by a strange lady in the night. One-shot, will write more if requested.
1. Chapter 1

By day I studied; chemistry, mathematics, physics, working as hard as every other boy in my class, striving for perfection. I wasn't falling behind, not by far, but I felt guilty. I wasn't at the top. And the reason for it was because I didn't spend my nights as my father intended.

Instead of studying in the early hours, as I had been taught to by my father, I crept through the silent corridors and across the cold floors in bare feet to the piano room.

The piano was beautiful. It was old; not so old it no longer functioned properly, but old enough to have a matured quality of sound, the kind of sound you only hear from really esteemed concert pianos in great opera houses. I was lucky my school had one – but then, it was to be expected. It was a historic school, and we had only the best.

I opened the French windows a crack in a small ritual I observed. I wasn't sure why, I just felt compelled to let the moonlight in.

I sat at the cushioned bench, running my fingers over the ivory keys. Moonlight glinted through the French windows, reflected in the meticulously polished case lid. A faint breeze blew in. It smelled like old wood and polish and _time_.

I pressed the keys down in a chord, and the wind picked up. My dark hair fluttered about my head, my silk pyjamas wrapping delicately around my ankles. The sound resonated through the room and through my bones. I moved my fingers, playing a piece I'd known for so long it felt natural to play. I shut my eyes, revelling in the cool wind and the familiarity of the piece.

The door creaked, and my head shot towards it in surprise, though my hands never ceased from playing. A tall figure held the door open, half-silhouetted in the moonlight. Her hair was piled on top of her head, tendrils snaking down to frame her face. She was dressed from the waist down, and her legs were hidden by flowing opaque drapes that drifted against the current of the wind. Her breasts were covered only by a strip of the same material.

For a moment I was transfixed; she was so beautiful. Her body was perfect, tall and willowy. Her hair streamed and flowed in no particular rhythm, too fine and too thick at the same time. She began to walk towards me, swaying, letting her skirt drifting hypnotically.

Then I saw her face. She was grey – no, silver – and metal plating encircled her left eye and part of her brow bone. Her eyes had no irises, just vertical slits that dilated in the dark of the room.

For a moment, the scientist in me wondered just what she was. Was she some kind of hallucination? Was she a figment of my imagination? Was she a dream?

She stopped a couple of metres from me and cocked a metal-tipped finger at me. I rose, almost involuntarily, from the chair, my hands stilling at last, and walked towards her. Every step was odd.

I took her extended hand. It was cold, but her touch was like lightning. I stared into her eyes as she pulled me closer, so close that our bodies touched. Our heads level, I stared into her eyes.

Sawing machines and bolts, wires, steel and smoke. A blue light, a lightning strike, and a sun so bright it reached the furthest rock and the deepest quark. And a music so beautiful it touched the coldest moon and the hottest star.

I stared into her eyes, and they sucked me in.


	2. Chapter 2

I was a prisoner of consciousness; her's and mine, the minute I looked too deep. I looked at myself through her eyes: a skinny adolescent in loose clothing, barefoot, the wielder of an instrument of supernatural beauty. She looked at herself through my eyes: the unexpected audience, tall and covered in moonlight, wielder of _eyes_.

For the first time, she spoke: "Your instrument. I wish it."

Holding hands, we walked. My feet stuck and slipped with sweat, but she was silent. But her mind was anything but silent. It swirled and twisted and writhed within her skull. It blazed across the metal plating on her face like a tempest, dipping into her limbs as she took action.

Her fingers touched the lid, tentatively at first, but then she leaned across it, draping her body against the cool wood. She inhaled the lingering polish fumes, examining their scent.

"For you?" She gestured towards the keys. I nodded and let go of her hand. She descended upon the ivory, the metal tips of her fingers gentle against the instrument. Still standing, she pressed a single finger on the highest note. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating as the note rang out through the room. She repeated this with every note, flinching delicately at each one.

I longed to be back inside her mind. It wasn't just fascinating. It was _intoxicating. _

I reached out to touch her. The fleshy tips of my own fingers brushed at the fabric covering her lower body. It rippled like water at my touch, parting-

"Must not!" She whirled around and snatched my hand away from her skirts. Her eyes narrowed, our connected minds probing me for any indication of horror, deceit, or anger. When she found none, she returned one hand to the piano, pulling both of us onto the piano stool.

"It's a piano." I whispered, finding my voice.

"Piano." She repeated. My right hand clasped in her vice-like left, I pressed my remaining fingers into a soft, low chord. She responded with a trickle of higher notes. I returned three chords, and so it continued.

Her metal-tipped fingers gouged my palm. I felt my blood lubricate our fingers.

She stopped playing and turned to face me. Her hand left mine, her pale skin darkened with my blood. Her other hand grasped my bleeding hand and raised it to her face. She cocked her head in curiosity, her lips thinning with concern and amusement conversely. She placed my palm back in my lap with apologetic eyes.

The connection cut, she raised her own right hand and drew a line down the palm. Thin, dark liquid streamed out of the gash. Concerned, I seized her hand and wrapped it in the hem of my shirt, trying to stem the bleeding. She let me, watching.

We sat still, as small pricks of pain erupted in each of our minds. They gathered in the centre, where they touched and amplified. The pain from my hand spread up, shattering my arm and my shoulder, seeping into my torso and legs and welling up into my head.

Her cool arm encircled my head, and it ceased.


	3. Chapter 3

"Who are you?" As the words left my lips, I realised 'what are you?' would be a more pertinent question to ask, along with 'where did you come from?' and 'why are you here?'. The irony didn't escape me.

She stared at me with her beautiful eyes. The moonlight was fading as dawn approached, casting longer shadows across the room and across her face.

"I am Saiya." She spoke softly, sadly. She glanced across the room at the sky.

Silently, she unhooked her arm from mine and slid off the bench, her body flowing towards the French windows. She gripped the door frame, the metal-tips of her fingers gouging valleys in the wood. My heart sank; she was leaving me.

"Make music tomorrow, and I come for you." With that, she turned, spreading her arms towards the sky. Her body was enveloped in the material of her skirts, which dissipated into a thousand pin-pricks of opaque dust against the sinking moon.

My face was cold. I lifted my bleeding hand to my face, surprised to find tears wetting my cheeks. I swiped at them, refusing to think about what just happened with _her_.

I slipped back into my room and caught what few hours of sleep my raging mind would allow. In school, I couldn't focus. Nothing could drive my mind away from the intriguing, enigmatic lady who visited me for the piano. My friends left me alone; they knew not to disturb me. I was grateful, afraid I would blurt out the exact thing I shouldn't: that I had been visited by an _alien. _Even saying it silently sounded insane.

I barely ate. I couldn't even focus on physics. The hours dragged on, my tired mind anxious for night to fall and the moon to rise.

The setting sun was a ghastly streak of yellow and red across the purpling sky. I wished the Sun would burn out, leaving the glowing moon in its place forever. The scientist in me nagged that it was impossible, but I shunted him aside. That wasn't important. Only she – Saiya – was important now.

At thirteen minutes past one, the moon fully overhead, I snuck down the corridor to the piano room. The silence was pregnant with my anticipation. I opened the French windows wide, my fingers brushing over the gouges in the door frame. _Her fingers had been here_, I thought, sighing.

I scampered across the room, and let my soul pour out across the piano. I shut my eyes, rocking back and forth with the rhythm. The room chilled with a sudden breeze, and the door creaked again, but I didn't open my eyes. Though I couldn't see her, I knew she was in front of me.

I grew impatient. Why didn't she sit next to me and play? Why didn't she lay her hand over mine to cease me? Why didn't she fix me with the stare that could quiet a thousand supernovae?

I opened my eyes, and she was there. Her hair floated around her head, now stuck with pins and sticks that trailed luminescent beads and shining metal. Her hand was extended, the pale palm facing skywards. I stopped playing and laid my palm in hers. She gripped tight, in one fluid movement, pulling me from my seat and into her arms.

Then there were her eyes. The supernovae in my mind froze, and I was still.


End file.
